Putin Human Rights Council Accidentally Posts REAL Crimean Elec Result-Only 15% Voted For Annexation

[The Magistrate]

72. It Is Not An Argument, Sir, it Is A Count

It is the portion of the populace, whether registered or eligible is unclear, but I chose eligible as the safest standard, since I have no idea what portion of people are actually registered, or however they handle the matter there.

It is quite true that a shockingly low portion of the voting age public turns out to vote here. In Presidential years, registration runs about three quarters of eligible voters, and between two thirds and three quarters of these will actually vote, so the total voting public is on average about 55% percent of those eligible. And people do take that as occasion to argue that any given President actually got the votes of between a quarter and a third of the adult populace.

There are two points, though, where the Crimea situation differs significantly.

First, the officially claimed and publicized figures for the Crimea referendum claimed a much greater turn-out, and claimed a far more one-sided tally. The officially reported figures for turn-out and tally here do not contain such gross distortions --- while there may be a bit of skull-duggery at times, if an election official here, or in most countries in Europe or South America, reports a number it can be taken as correct. That does not seem true for the Crimea figures.

Second, in our elections, there is no reason to suspect the views of people who do not bother voting differ greatly from the views of those who do vote. It is possible the 'non-voter bloc' would break more towards the Democrats than otherwise, but not by a great margin. In a situation where a vote is held within days of an invasion, where armed men and checkpoints will be encountered, there is reason to suspect people who stay away from the polls may well have different views than those who go to the polls, and stay away either as a boycott, or out of fear a vote against the men with the guns might prove dangerous.